I was about to speak to her, when I saw the expression suddenly change: a hurried glance was thrown backwards, as if the approach of some one disturbed her; a finger rested momentarily on her lips, and then her face disappeared behind the screening wall of the parapet.

I understood the universal sign, and remained silent.

For some moments I was undecided whether to go or stay. She had evidently withdrawn from the front of the building, though she was still upon the azotea. Some one had joined her; and I could hear voices in conversation; her own contrasting with the harsher tones of a man.

Perhaps her father--perhaps--that other _relative_--less agreeable supposition!

I was about to ride off, when it occurred to me that I had better first master the contents of the "papelcito." Perhaps it might throw some light on the situation, and enable me to adopt the more pleasant alternative of remaining a while longer upon the premises.

I had thrust the _billet_ into the breast of my frock; and now looked around for some place where I might draw it forth and peruse it unobserved. The great arched gateway, shadowy and tenantless, offered the desired accommodation; and heading my horse to it, I once more rode inside the saguan.

Facing around so as to hide my front from the _cocineras_, I drew forth the strip of folded paper, and spread it open before me. Though written in pencil, and evidently in a hurried impromptu, I had no difficulty in deciphering it. My heart throbbed exultingly as I read:--

"Capitan! I know you will pardon our dry hospitality? A cup of cold water--ha! ha! ha! Remember what I told you yesterday: we fear our _friends_ more than our _foes_, and we have a _guest in the house my father dreads more than you and your terrible filibusteros_. I am not angry with you for my pet, but you have carried off my lazo as well.

Ah, capitan! would you rob me of _everything_?--Adios!

"Isolina."

Thrusting the paper back into my bosom, I sat for some time pondering upon its contents. Part was clear enough--the remaining part full of mystery.

"We fear our _friends_ more than _our foes_." I was behind the scenes sufficiently to comprehend what was intended by that cunningly worded phrase. It simply meant that Don Ramon de Vargas was _Ayankieado_--in other words, a friend to the American cause, or, as some loud demagogues would have pronounced him, a "traitor to his country." It did not follow, however, that he was anything of the kind. He might have wished success to the American arms, and still remained a true friend to his country--not one of those blind bigots whose standard displays the brigand motto, "Our country right or wrong;" but an enlightened patriot, who desired more to see Mexico enjoy peace and happiness under foreign domination, than that it should continue in anarchy under the iron rule of native despots. What is there in the empty title of _independence_, without peace, without liberty? After all, patriotism in its ordinary sense is but a doubtful virtue--perhaps nearer to a crime! It will one day appear so; one day in the far future it will be supplanted by a virtue of higher order--the patriotism that knows no boundaries of nations, but whose _country_ is the whole earth. That, however, would _not_ be "patriotism!"

Was Don Ramon de Vargas a patriot in this sense--a man of progress, who cared not that the _name_ of "Mexico" should be blotted from the map, so long as peace and prosperity should be given to his country under another name? Was Don Ramon one of these? It might be. There were many such in Mexico at that time, and these principally of the class to which Senor de Vargas belonged--the _ricos_, or proprietors. It is easy enough to explain why the Ayankieados were of the class of ricos.

Perhaps the affection of Don Ramon for the American cause had less lofty motives; perhaps the five thousand beeves may have had something to do with it? Whether or no, I could not tell; nor did I stay to consider.

I only reflected upon the matter at all as offering an explanation to the ambiguous phrase now twice used by his fair daughter--"We fear our _friends_ more than our _foes_." On either supposition, the meaning was clear.

What followed was far from being equally perspicuous. _A guest in the house dreaded by her father_? Here was mystery indeed. Who could that guest be?--who but _Ijurra_?

But Ijurra was her cousin--she had said so. If a cousin, why should he be dreaded? Was there still another guest in the house? That might be: I had not been inside to see. The mansion was large enough to accommodate another--half a score of others. For all that, my thoughts constantly turned upon Ijurra, why I know not, but I could not resist the belief that he was the person pointed at--the guest that was "dreaded!"

The behaviour which I had noticed on the day before--the first and only time I had ever seen the man--his angry speech and looks addressed to Isolina--her apparent fear of him: these it was, no doubt, that guided my instincts; and I at length came to the conviction that he was the fiend dreaded by Don Ramon. And she too feared him! "God grant she do not also _love_ him!"

Such was my mental ejaculation, as I passed on to consider the closing sentences of the hastily written note. In these I also encountered ambiguity of expression; whether I construed it aright, time would tell.

Perhaps my wish was too much parent to my thoughts: but it was with an exulting heart I read the closing sentence and rode forth from the gateway.

CHAPTER TEN.

AN OLD ENMITY.

I rode slowly, and but a few paces before reining up my horse. Although I was under the impression that it would be useless remaining, and that an interview with Isolina was impossible--for that day at least--I could not divest myself of the desire to linger a little longer near the spot.

Perhaps she might appear again upon the azotea; if but for a moment; if but to wave her hand, and waft me an adieu; if but--

When a short distance separated me from the walls, I drew up; and turning in the saddle, glanced back to the parapet. A face was there, where hers had been; but, oh, the contrast between her lovely features and those that now met my gaze! Hyperion to the Satyr! Not that the face now before me was ugly or ill-featured. There are some, and women too, who would have termed it handsome; to my eyes it was hideous! Let me confess that this hideousness, or more properly its cause, rested in the moral, rather than the physical expression; perhaps, too, little of it might have been found in my own heart. Under other circumstances, I might not have criticised that face so harshly. All the world did not agree with me about the face of Rafael Ijurra--for it was he who was gazing over the parapet.

Our eyes met; and that first glance stamped the relationship between us--hostility for life! Not a word passed, and yet the looks of each told the other, in the plainest language, "_I am your foe_." Had we sworn it in wild oaths, in all the bitter hyperbole of insult, neither of us would have felt it more profound and keen.

I shall not stay to analyse this feeling of sudden and unexpressed hostility, though the philosophy of it is simple enough. You too have experienced it--perhaps more than once in your life, without being exactly able to explain it. I am not in that dilemma: I could explain it easily enough; but it scarcely merits an explanation. Suffice to say, that while gazing upon the face of that man, I entertained it in all its strength.

I have called it an _unexpressed_ hostility. Therein I have spoken without thought: it was fully expressed by both of us, though not in words. Words are but weak symbols of a passion, compared with the passion itself, exhibited in the clenched hand, the lip compressed, the flashing eye, the clouded cheek, the quick play of the muscles--weak symbols are words compared with signs like these. No words passed between Ijurra and myself; none were needed. Each read in the other a rival--a rival in love, a competitor for the heart of a lovely woman, the _loveliest_ in Mexico! It is needless to say that, under such an aspect, each hated the other at sight.

In the face of Ijurra I read more. I saw before me a man of bad heart and brutal nature. His large, and to speak the truth, beautiful eyes, had in them an animal expression. They were not without intelligence, but so much the worse, for that intelligence expressed ferocity and bad faith. His beauty was the beauty of the jaguar. He had the air of an accomplished man, accustomed to conquest in the field of love-- heartless, reckless, false. O mystery of our nature, there are those who love such men!

In Ijurra's face I read more: _he knew my secret_! The significant glance of his eye told me so. He knew why I was lingering there. The satiric smile upon his lip attested it. He saw my efforts to obtain an interview, and confident in his own position, held my failure but lightly--a something only to amuse him. I could tell all this by the sardonic sneer that sat upon his features.

As we continued to gaze, neither moving his eyes from the other, this sneer became too oppressive to be silently borne. I could no longer stand such a satirical reading of my thoughts. The insult was as marked as words could have made it; and I was about to have recourse to words to reply, when the clatter of a horse's hoofs caused me to turn my eyes in an opposite direction. A horseman was coming up the hill, in a direct line from the pastures. I saw it was one of the lieutenants-- Holingsworth.

A few more stretches of his horse brought the lieutenant upon the ground, where he pulled up directly in front of me.

"Captain Warfield!" said he, speaking in an official tone, "the cattle are collected; shall we proceed--"

He proceeded no further with that sentence; his eye, chance directed, was carried up to the azotea, and rested upon the face of Ijurra. He started in his saddle, as if a serpent had stung him; his hollow eyes shot prominently out, glaring wildly from their sockets, while the muscles of his throat and jaws twitched in convulsive action!

For a moment, the desperate passion seemed to stifle his breathing, and while thus silent, the expression of his eyes puzzled me. It was of frantic joy, and ill became that face where I had never observed a smile. But the strange look was soon explained--it was not of friendship, but the joy of anticipated vengeance!

Breaking into a wild laugh, he shrieked out--

"Rafael Ijurra, by the eternal God!"

This awful and emphatic recognition produced its effect. I saw that Ijurra knew the man who addressed him. His dark countenance turned suddenly pale, and then became mottled with livid spots, while his eyes scintillated, and rolled about in the unsteady glances of terror. He made no reply beyond the ejaculation "Demonio!" which seemed involuntarily to escape him. He appeared unable to reply; surprise and fright held him spell-bound and speechless!

"Traitor! villain! murderer!" shrieked Holingsworth, "we've met at last; now for a squaring of our accounts!" and in the next instant the muzzle of his rifle was pointing to the notch in the parapet--pointing to the face of Ijurra!

"Hold, Holingsworth!--hold!" cried I, pressing my heel deeply into my horse's flanks, and dashing forward.

Though my steed sprang instantly to the spur, and as quickly I caught the lieutenant's arm, I was too late to arrest the shot. I spoiled his aim, however; and the bullet, instead of passing through the brain of Rafael Ijurra, as it would certainly have done, glanced upon the mortar of the parapet, sending a cloud of lime-dust into his face.

Up to that moment the Mexican had made no attempt to escape beyond the aim of his antagonist. Terror must have glued him to the spot. It was only when the report of the rifle, and the blinding mortar broke the spell, that he was able to turn and fly. When the dust cleared away, his head was no longer above the wall.

I turned to my companion, and addressed him in some warmth--

"Lieutenant Holingsworth! I command--"

"Captain Warfield," interrupted he, in a tone of cool determination, "you may command me in all matters of duty, and I shall obey you. This is a private affair; and, by the Eternal, the General himself--Bah! I lose time; the villain will escape!" and before I could seize either himself or his bridle-rein, Holingsworth had shot his horse past me, and entered the gateway at a gallop.

I followed as quickly as I could, and reached the patio almost as soon as he; but too late to hinder him from his purpose.

I grasped him by the arm, but with determined strength he wrenched himself free--at the same instant gliding out of the saddle.

Pistol in hand, he rushed up the _escalera_, his trailing scabbard clanking upon the stone steps as he went. He was soon out of my sight, behind the parapet of the azotea.

Flinging myself from the saddle, I followed as fast as my legs would carry me.

While on the stairway, I heard loud words and oaths above, the crash of falling objects, and then two shots following quick and fast upon each other. I heard screaming in a woman's voice, and then a groan--the last uttered by a man.

One of them is dead or dying, thought I.

On reaching the azotea--which I did in a few seconds of time--I found perfect silence there. I saw no one, male or female, living or dead!